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Microsoft Corp. is working with the OPC Foundation to enable almost any IIoT scenario using interoperability between the millions of OPC UA-compliant applications and equipment. Microsoft will enable IIoT users to connect manufacturing equipment and software with extended support of OPC UA's open-source software stack. Microsoft’s extended support for OPC UA spans its IoT offerings from local connectivity with Windows devices to cloud connectivity via Microsoft Azure. Integration with Azure IoT allows customers to easily send OPC UA data to the Azure cloud, as well as command and control OPC UA devices remotely from the Azure cloud.
Pepperl+Fuchs broke ground June 2 on its new U.S. distribution and engineering center in Katy, Texas, near…

While routine build-up and clogging in process applications is annoying, process scaling is more persistent, causes unplanned downtime and increases costs in many industries. It's typically composed of calcium carbonate, wax, grease or similar…

Just as you can't have too many friends, level measurement applications can't get enough ease of use, reliability and safety. Thanks to increasing process industry needs and user demand for them, these are the three unifying priorities that drove…

Our panel of experts explore best practices for dealing with buildup on chemical seals of a differential pressure flowmeter.

Q: We have a venturi flowmeter with 3-in. flanged pressure taps and flanged chemical seals with capillary tubes in a 44-in. vertical pipe (Figure 1). The fluid is hydrocarbon (polymeric) gas. The problem is that the chemical seal diaphragms often…

A Control Design reader writes: We have several temperature, pressure and flow sensors on a new medical-device cleaning skid that we are developing. These instruments are connected to a PLC as 4-20 mA inputs, and there is also a 4-20 mA output used to control a pump motor speed. A recent failure of a flow sensor brought the process skid instrumentation to my company's quality manager's attention. He asked how we know that the temperatures, pressure and flow are accurate, and how do we know that we are cleaning properly.
I've been tasked to write a procedure for troubleshooting, calibrating and testing the 4-20 mA instruments on the skid. I can probably stumble through this, but what are some best practices for troubleshooting the analog…

Control's Monthly Resource Guide brings you the latest online resources on a variety of process control topics.

MULTI-PART WEIGHING
This four-section webpage by Omega Engineering covers "Weighing Applications," "Weighing System Design," "Installation and Calibration" and "Specialized Installations." The whole group is located at…

FOPDT model has demonstrated utility for controller tuning rules, for structuring decouplers and feedforward control algorithms.

A first-order plus deadtime (FOPDT) model is a simple approximation of the dynamic response (the transient or time-response) of a process variable to an influence. It’s also called first-order lag plus deadtime (FOLPDT), or “deadtime” may be…

'To the degree networks and standards can provide easy, consistent and seamless access to device-resident controls, the vision of truly distributed control may finally dawn upon us.'

Every compressor in the facility went down at once that day, when a PLC redundancy switchover didn’t transfer in time. The engineers didn’t know that each P453 remote I/O processor had a dip-switch-selectable timeout setting—if it didn’t…

A Control Design reader writes: We have several temperature, pressure and flow sensors on a new medical-device cleaning skid that we are developing. These instruments are connected to a PLC as 4-20 mA inputs, and there is also a 4-20 mA output used to control a pump motor speed. A recent failure of a flow sensor brought the process skid instrumentation to my company's quality manager's attention. He asked how we know that the temperatures, pressure and flow are accurate, and how do we know that we are cleaning properly.
I've been tasked to write a procedure for troubleshooting, calibrating and testing the 4-20 mA instruments on the skid. I can probably stumble through this, but what are some best practices for troubleshooting the analog…

Most public utilities deliver basic power and water, and God bless them for doing it. However, a few go beyond their essential missions, and seek to further enhance the overall well-being and prosperity of their communities.
One of these is…

Advanced control on fuel and steam can control emissions while saving millions.

It’s no secret that advanced process control (APC) has played a major role in the process industries for many decades. However, while many organizations focus only on major process units, there’s often an untapped opportunity to do more, and…

Our readers tell us who they think delivers the best technology in our industry

There's knowledge in our readers. That's why every year we ask our loyal audience to help us determine which automation service providers offer the best products and brands they can rely on to get the best combination of performance, ease of use,…

Just when it seems like today’s sophisticated motors and drives can’t possibly add more efficiencies and capabilities, engineers conjure up new tricks and refinements, followed by end users and system integrators who materialize new settings and…

Control's monthly guide brings you invaluable industry information to stay up to date on the latest trends and developments.

THE CLASSIC VALVE BOOK
The fourth edition of the 295-page classic text, "Control Valve Handbook," by Fisher Controls International and Emerson Process Management reports this classic text has been a primary reference since its first printing in1965.

Control's monthly guide brings you invaluable industry information to stay up to date on the latest trends and developments.

THE CLASSIC VALVE BOOK
The fourth edition of the 295-page classic text, "Control Valve Handbook," by Fisher Controls International and Emerson Process Management reports this classic text has been a primary reference since its first printing in1965.

Just when it seems like today’s sophisticated motors and drives can’t possibly add more efficiencies and capabilities, engineers conjure up new tricks and refinements, followed by end users and system integrators who materialize new settings and…

Actionable information is essential for the effectiveness of the 'loop,' as it is for closed-loop control and open-loop alarms.

When I sat down in my office this morning, I was greeted by the operations manager, who pointed out an entry from last night’s operations log: “Did you see? The boiler steam vent is in manual because the pressure reading whacked out and made the…

Actionable information is essential for the effectiveness of the 'loop,' as it is for closed-loop control and open-loop alarms.

When I sat down in my office this morning, I was greeted by the operations manager, who pointed out an entry from last night’s operations log: “Did you see? The boiler steam vent is in manual because the pressure reading whacked out and made the…

Actionable information is essential for the effectiveness of the 'loop,' as it is for closed-loop control and open-loop alarms.

When I sat down in my office this morning, I was greeted by the operations manager, who pointed out an entry from last night’s operations log: “Did you see? The boiler steam vent is in manual because the pressure reading whacked out and made the…

Our readers tell us who they think delivers the best technology in our industry

There's knowledge in our readers. That's why every year we ask our loyal audience to help us determine which automation service providers offer the best products and brands they can rely on to get the best combination of performance, ease of use,…

Visualizing and contextualizing safety data can have a positive impact on productivity and compliance.

"Information is one thing, but safety information is quite another," says George Schuster. He should know. He’s charged with business development for the Global Safety Team of Rockwell Automation and has seen many plants and factories begin to…

How to deal with the constraints of putting access points in hazardous areas.

In an ideal world, it wouldn’t be necessary to worry about explosive atmospheres. Unfortunately, plant environments are far from ideal, with most process plants being about 80% Class I, Div. 2 (Zone 2) and another 10% Class I Div. 1 (Zone 1), so…

Key is to learn as much as possible to make digital technologies safe, secure and successful in process settings.

As usual, and I’m sure this is true for many of you, this year’s autumn season has been a frantic dash of work, deadlines, sleep deprivation, indigestion and suspiciously arthritic stiffness. In my case, this means covering all sides of the…

With today’s network technology, even Ethernet and wireless are almost always fast enough.

As automation professionals, one issue we have about control loops is ensuring we're able to support real-time control. Historically, when Ethernet was 10 MB/s and there were multiple drops on a single port, collisions were a significant concern and…

With today’s network technology, even Ethernet and wireless are almost always fast enough.

As automation professionals, one issue we have about control loops is ensuring we're able to support real-time control. Historically, when Ethernet was 10 MB/s and there were multiple drops on a single port, collisions were a significant concern and…

Because they're the crossroads, nexus and Grand Central Station for sensor signals and data arriving and requests and actuation instructions departing, it's a big help that I/O and terminal blocks are more flexible and capable than ever.

Compact, Remote I/O for Zone 2/Div 2
LB System remote I/O has more power in less space with high-performance, compact modules plugged into a backplane. Energy-saving power management and low-power dissipation allow maximum packing density. With the…

Be just 33 seconds more productive each hour, and the savings mount quickly.

Rockwell Automation previewed its new, forward-looking App Platform for mobility at this week’s TechED conference in Orlando. While focused first on redefining smartphone use on the plant floor – with the aim of making individual workers more…

Control’s latest State of Technology report delves into the many aspects of power systems of interest in process plants.

From sourcing and ensuring uninterrupted flows of clean electricity to monitoring, regulating and metering generation and consumption throughout a facility, process automation professionals who want a smooth-running, efficient and reliable facility are well advised to seek and control power.
This anthology of recent articles delves into the many aspects of power systems of interest in process plants. Remote and wireless systems are speeding development and standardization of energy harvesting and improved battery systems.
Line-powered supplies that used to only transform electricity and maybe offer surge protection are now monitoring and measuring current and voltage profiles, implementing alerts and alarms, and sending data up to…

Greg: Here we take advantage of the chance to talk to Bill Thomas, who provides a great lesson of how to succeed in advancing capabilities and opportunities in his career and the control systems for which he was responsible. His career and the…

Control's monthly guide brings you invaluable industry information to stay up to date on the latest trends and developments.

AT THEIR BEST, ALL THE TIME
ExperTune’s white paper, “How to Improve Performance of Process Control Assets,” by George Buckbee, P.E., describes the practice of real-time asset performance management, shows how to get assets to perform at their best all the time, and demonstrates the value of integrating these tools for a performance picture that delivers financial results. It’s available here.
ISA / www.isa.org
ANALYZING, PREDICTING PROBLEMS
This 57-minute video, “Avoid Equipment Surprises: Predictive Diagnostics for Oil & Gas,” is presented by Joe Dupree, GE Automation and Controls, and users from NiSource Gas and Alyeska. They demonstrate condition-based monitoring, predictive analytics and other tools for evaluating…

Steve Christian remembers the days—not too long ago—when production schedules were printed on sheets of paper and distributed to operators at his plant, who would manually twist valve handles to send the Ragu sauce tomato slurry from one kettle…

Advanced control on fuel and steam can control emissions while saving millions.

It’s no secret that advanced process control (APC) has played a major role in the process industries for many decades. However, while many organizations focus only on major process units, there’s often an untapped opportunity to do more, and…

Find and slay the dragons lurking in the typical safety instrumented system.

Cybersecurity is a growing concern in the process industries, and a number of good articles have been written about it for industrial control systems (ICS)—many full of doom and gloom. Here, we will divide the ICS into two parts: safety…

Big data can only help users if they understand what it is, how it can affect their controls and processes, and how they can use it to optimize operations.

Similar to any new technology emerging on the process control front, big data can only help users make better decisions if they understand what it is, how it can affect their controls and processes, and how they can use it to optimize operations.

Our readers tell us who they think delivers the best technology in our industry

There's knowledge in our readers. That's why every year we ask our loyal audience to help us determine which automation service providers offer the best products and brands they can rely on to get the best combination of performance, ease of use,…

Instrumentation as a Foundation for Profit

What Is the Real Value of Instrumenting Production Processes? Control Engineers Know It. Do You?

Control engineers know the value of instrumenting production processes. It's about time the executives understood that, too. In the newly released MESA-Cambashi research study, "Correlating Plant Performance to Business Performance," it's clear that good business performance in the plant is a common characteristic of companies that improved their business or financial performance significantly. Looking behind the data and listening to the respondents we interviewed by telephone, it's also clear that instrumentation is at the core of a producer's ability to increase profitability.

To validate the concept of the research in "Correlating Plant Performance to Business Performance," we split the respondents into two groups based on how much they improved against key financial metrics. The group we call "Business Movers" includes just over one-third of respondents who improved either earnings (EBITDA) or profits (net operating profit) by 10% or respondents that improved performance on 10 of the 14 business metrics in the survey.

These business movers certainly improved plant operations performance as well. Figure 1 shows the Phase 1 findings for just a few of the operational metrics. This chart compares the portion of these business movers that have improved significantly (10% or more) and the portion of "others" making the same 10% level of improvement. Since we can see that more of the business movers are improving quality, timeliness and cost of production, everyone else is in danger of losing the ability to compete. The business movers' increased financial performance suggests just that.

Figure 1. "Business Movers" either improved their earnings or profits by 10% or are respondents that improved performance on 10 of the 14 business metrics.

So what does that have to do with instrumentation? Without instrumentation, measuring operations performance is a gigantic tradeoff. In fact, one of the respondents said, "I can automate data collection, but then I must look at the cost-benefit. Where is the line? The tradeoff is between how much unproductive time employees need to capture the data and the expense of capturing the data automatically. Instrumenting the process may be faster and more efficient—but how much does the infrastructure cost?"

Clearly the cost of infrastructure is always a hurdle for investing in automation. How most companies do this today, particularly in the West, is problematic.

Timeframe: The first problem is that most companies look at it from a short-term investment perspective, and not in the context of long-term ability to improve business and financial performance. From the short-term view, investing in instrumentation may be a tricky justification exercise. However, from a longer-term view, it's nearly certain to be a winning proposition. In fact, taking the short-term hit to margin during the investment phase can be the beginning of a longer-term, year-on-year improvement capability that the company can't envision before the investment is in place.

Productivity perspective: Most companies do not have a handle on the lost productivity and other costs that result when employees can't see their performance. This could be either not having visibility to how well they're performing—or not seeing performance outcomes quickly enough to take action to prevent problems or improve performance. Another interviewee said, "What I've learned is that the faster I deal with a quality or productivity issue, the less it costs to correct it. Faster means less costly countermeasures."

The cost-benefit question in the quote above illustrates both of those issues. The common approach to justifying an investment in instrumentation is a view of labor hours spent collecting data vs. the cost of the automated data collection capability. That is simply faulty logic.

One of the other interviewees pointed out that the most valuable metric for his company is the cost of lost production time. And what contributes to lost time? All of the things we typically measure. There's a good bet that the quality, throughput, asset utilization, compliance and anything that relies on timeliness (such as cycle times and schedule attainment that enable good customer service) will benefit from better instrumented processes.

We would broaden that to include any lost time in the company and any non-value-adding time. Value stream mapping may contribute a clearer view by considering the entire set of operations metrics that contribute to the company's success. Automated controls enable process reliability and consistency that Six Sigma and other continuous provement methodologies recognize as the core goal. Furthermore, the information available from instrumentation allows people to make better decisions, and can feed other automated systems, such as software applications, to make them more valuable. The justification should work toward quantifying all of those issues.

In fact, business movers are nearly twice as likely to use fully automated data collection to feed their metrics processes as others, as Figure 2 shows. The concept of partially automated data collection involves things such as employees using barcode scanning guns. It should be noted that more than three in five respondents in the "other" group are heavily reliant on people to gather the data required to gauge performance. We doubt this is either efficient or effective.

Figure 2. Business movers are nearly twice as likely to use fully automated data collection to feed their metrics processes as others.

In fact, the respondents to this study report that they are more likely to have a one-year or less return on investment horizon in automation and controls than for operating equipment. This is old-school thinking. For one, most equipment these days has some instrumentation built in.

How can the controls community help break this pattern of under-valuing instrumentation? By leveraging the results of the data collected from any processes instrumented today. Those with a continuous improvement group—particularly Six Sigma teams that conduct statistical analysis—will have a rich data source for this effort. Others may need to recommend that their accounting team learn about resource consumption accounting or get involved in building out costed models of production. Controls engineers must also ensure they are partners in specifying equipment, so that the instrumentation required for such measurement is available and appropriate for their environment.

Helping plant employees see the financial impact of their activity can truly drive improvements. That requires speedy ways to measure operations, among other things. Control magazine readers know that the way to collect data for metrics that is fast and accurate is instrumentation. Invest in or leverage instrumentation for performance metrics to help your company get on the path to profits!

Please note: As I write this, the final study is not yet released. Thus this data represents public data from Phase 1, which is a subset of the data. To see the final study and data set from the full response base, please go to www.MESA.org. A public summary report is available for all; the comprehensive study is for MESA Premium Members and study sponsors only.